Lagging Indicators: Market indicators showing the general direction of the economy and confirming or denying the trend implied by the leading indicators. Also referred to as concurrent indicators.

Last Trading Day: According to the Chicago Board of Trade rules, the final day when trading may occur in a given futures or options contract month. Futures contracts outstanding at the end of the last trading day must be settled by delivery of the underlying commodity or securities or by agreement for monetary settlement (in some cases by EFPs).

Leading Indicators: Market indicators that signal the state of the economy for the coming months.
Some of the leading indicators include: average manufacturing workweek, initial claims for
unemployment insurance, orders for consumer goods and material, percentage of companies reporting slower deliveries, change in manufacturers' unfilled orders for durable goods, plant and equipment
orders, new building permits, index of consumer expectations, change in material prices, prices of stocks, change in money supply.

Leverage: The ability to control large dollar amounts of a commodity with a comparatively small amount of capital.

Limit Order: An order in which the customer sets a limit on the price and/or time of execution.

Limits: See Position Limit, Price Limit, Variable Limit.

Linkage: The ability to buy (sell) contracts on one exchange (such as the Chicago Mercantile Exchange) and later sell (buy) them on another exchange (such as the Singapore International Monetary Exchange).

Liquid: A characteristic of a security or commodity market with enough units outstanding to allow large transactions without a substantial change in price. Institutional investors are inclined to seek out liquid investments so that their trading activity will not influence the market price.

Liquidate: Selling (or purchasing) futures contracts of the same delivery month purchased (or sold) during an earlier transaction or making (or taking) delivery of the cash commodity represented by the futures contract. See Offset.

Liquidity Data Bank®(LDB®): A computerized profile of CBOT market activity, used by technical traders to analyze price trends and develop trading strategies. There is a specialized display of daily volume data and time distribution of prices for every commodity traded on the Chicago Board of Trade.
Loan Program: A federal program in which the government lends money at preannounced rates to farmers and allows them to use the crops they plant for the upcoming crop year as collateral. Default on these loans is the primary method by which the government acquires stocks of agricultural commodities.

Loan Rate: The amount lent per unit of a commodity to farmers.

Long: One who has bought futures contracts or owns a cash commodity.

Long Hedge: See Purchasing Hedge.

Low: The lowest price of the day for a particular futures contract.